Q&A Paul Reville
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Q&A with Paul Reville on Rethinking How, When, asks and Where Kids Learn Since early 2020, our educational system has drastically adapted to address the challenges from the pandemic. As we anticipate the new school year, the outlook on education looks very different. SCRI recently sat down with Paul Reville, Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor and education visionary, to capture his thinking about post- pandemic schooling in America. Q: There’s a lot of talk about building back better in education. How do we know that K-12 education is in need of transformational change? Why can’t we keep going as-is? Paul Reville Paul: We have recognized, ever since the 1983 Nation at Risk report, that our current education system is not adequately meeting the needs of students and society. We’ve just come through 25 to 30 years Paul Reville is the Francis Keppel of intensive, expensive and energetic school reform in this country, but Professor of Practice of Educational we’ve made relatively little progress in closing persistent opportunity Policy and Administration at and achievement gaps. the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and the founding As a result, we’ve got substantial swaths of the population director of HGSE’s Education either dropping out or graduating without the necessary skills to be successful in careers or in college. If nothing else, we Redesign Lab. Reville is also longtime have proven during the period of school reform that exclusively member of the Board of Directors of focusing on school optimization is insufficient to create an equal BellXcel. opportunity society. In 2013, Reville completed nearly five years of service as the Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth “When schools closed, a lot of of Massachusetts. His new book is inequities became very apparent. Collaborative Action for Equity and People began to understand that basics Opportunity: A Practical Guide for School and Community Leaders. like food, stable housing, health care and safety are prerequisites for any child to be ready to learn.” 1 We have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do as established or structured to meet these needs. communities to make it possible for all children to have Further, the pandemic revealed that things like Internet opportunities that those of us with privilege provide for access, family engagement, access to enrichment and our own children? What are we going to do to make mental health care all have an enormous impact on the it possible for all children to have the basics, like food, capacity of schools to succeed. stable housing, healthcare, optical care and dental care? It’s now easier to see that a lack of basic opportunities These are preconditions that would enable a child and supports constrains many young people and their to come to school genuinely ready to learn. Other schools from being successful. So, I think this more societies have been able to do that. The notion that in holistic view of young people has moved to the center. 20% of a child’s waking hours, schools are going to be This makes the current moment a time of promise. It’s able to level our grossly unequal playing field that is life almost a cliche now to say that people ought to make in America is just magical thinking. And so, I think we’ve the best of a crisis, but that’s the opportunity we have in got to get over that. We can do better. I think a lot of this moment. hopeful things have emerged from the pandemic that point to some productive directions. Q: What are the barriers to change? Paul: The education system is a very conservative system. We redo what we’ve always done, however unsuccessful, “ [Schools] had to develop because it’s so locked in, politically and otherwise, that an emergency response, and making change is very difficult and controversial. There’s some of them hope, however. have managed to refine that Before the pandemic, the education industry was slow to adopt technology, with a few notable exceptions. response into something Suddenly last March, people were catapulted into the beginning to approach the use age of educational technology. They had to develop an of state-of-the art technology emergency response, and some of them have managed to refine that response into something beginning to for educational purposes. approach the use of state-of-the art technology for educational purposes. Now you’ve got people rolling. Now you’ve got people rolling. How do you direct and use that momentum? How do you direct and use The other thing that I’ll say is while we have overcome that momentum?” the initial inertia that keeps people doing the same thing, people are also exhausted and overwhelmed. So, in some respects, a reversion to the status quo is Q: How has the pandemic opened doors for psychologically attractive to people. That is the real meaningful change? How are key stakeholders seeing current risk we face. things differently now? Paul: I think the general public perceives, with a greater Q: Keeping in mind those barriers, what sense of urgency than ever before, what children need transformational changes should educational leaders to be successful in school and life. When schools closed, consider as we emerge from the pandemic? a lot of inequities became very apparent. People began Paul: My top priority is personalization. I often say, if to understand that basics like food, stable housing, we did medicine like we do education, then everybody health care and safety are prerequisites for any child who walks through the front door of the hospital would to be ready to learn. Schools have always put a band- get the same treatment and have the same length of aid or temporary solution to address those needs, and stay, no matter what’s actually going on with them. It when they closed, things fell apart. Schools weren’t doesn’t work. 2 I’m hoping that this pandemic and the differential Unified School District. Effective children’s cabinets effects on learning loss will finally break the one-size- are present in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Somerville, fits-all model of education and allow us to move to a Massachusetts. Additionally, New York City is very personalized model where we meet children where they enthusiastic about the children’s cabinet that they are in early childhood and give them what they need are developing. inside and outside of school. We’d develop a success plan for each child, like keeping a running record in medicine—a profile of each child that travels with them “I’m hoping that this and captures their unique educational journey. pandemic and the differential Another area for transformative growth is relationships. We hear a lot of talk about “learning loss,” as though the effects on learning loss will problem of missed opportunities during the pandemic finally break the one-size-fits- was merely a technical problem of pouring knowledge into kids’ heads. However, if there’s a major challenge all model of education.” for students coming back to school, it’s rebuilding relationships that were so suddenly and deeply fractured One way that districts can attend to relationships is in when schools closed. their approach to personalize learning. For example, Even before the pandemic, mental health problems, Nashville just took a big step forward by appointing anxiety and alienation were overwhelming schools. a navigator for each of its 26,000 students. The We have to end the anonymity that is all too navigator is someone the family and the student can common in schools. Part of personalization is having communicate with who is keeping a portfolio and a resource—navigator, coach, advocate—to follow helping that child move through the system. It’s possible each student and connect to their families throughout for districts to start in very modest ways, like giving a the process. Given the crisis of the pandemic, school administrator, guidance counselor or teacher many school systems were actively reaching out to a group of kids. Maybe it’s the homeroom group but families to check in on students who were missing the navigator interviews each of them individually, or unengaged. We need to rebuild that kind of begins to build a lasting relationship and also connects connection between home and school as a partnership to their family. for children’s learning. We often say, your budget shows what you value. So, where do we see families in the school budget? Q: What are some things communities and districts Basically, they’re invisible. If we want people to take it can do now, and who can they learn from? seriously, we have to build it into the budget and make Paul: I want to see children’s cabinets formed in every expenditures on personnel. Whether it’s additional community. We’ve got to think more holistically about teacher time or a family coordinator in each building, the lives of young people in the way I was discussing someone should be paid to spend time connecting earlier—365 days a year, 24 hours a day, what’s going to families, doing family visits, welcoming families into this child’s life? A children’s cabinet brings the whole into schools and following up on any school problems. community together to think about what we need to do There is a lot the younger generation can do, like City for young people for them to thrive and prosper. Year or other corps members, to be that connective Children’s cabinets start by identifying the unmet needs tissue between families and schools.